EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
“The intent of student equity funding and planning is to ensure equal educational opportunities and to promote student success for
all students, regardless of race, gender, disability, or economic circumstances. For purposes of this plan, student equity is defined as
helping students achieve equal outcomes on success indicators as compared to either their own percentage in the community or
college student body, or to other student groups.”
California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office
Ohlone College, based on multiple performance indicators from the Scorecard and comparisons to local and peer colleges, is among
the higher performing community colleges in the state. There are numerous programs and services in place—both from student
services and instruction—designed to foster student success. Nonetheless, not all groups benefit equitably from these student
support services. The college has identified one group in particular—African American students—who regularly are identified as
being disproportionately impacted on measures of course completion, probation, basic skills success, and degree completion.
Clearly, to provoke more equitable outcomes, targeted support for African American students is warranted.
Additionally, Ohlone College has historically focused on excellence, and the college purposefully works to see student success
improve year to year. For this reason this plan will also include programs and services aimed at increasing success for all
underperforming, underrepresented students. In practice, the college will use as its watershed metric the minimal success rate
standard that was established by the Faculty Senate. Groups who are below this college-set standard will be the focus of activities
identified as best practices. This means that, more than just targeting disproportionately impacted groups, the college will direct
support to a larger numbers of students, aware that not all may meet the definition of disproportionately impacted, but impacted
nonetheless if they are below the college’s minimal standard.
Summarily, the Ohlone College Student Equity Plan has five major strategies—one for a group that has been identified consistently as
adversely affected, one for two groups that are not disproportionately impacted but have metrics that are below the college-set
minimal standards, and three strategies to increase student success across all underrepresented groups with achievement outcomes
below the largest and best achieving student group. For the identified groups the college will expand its learning communities; to
increase overall success, the college will implement or increase the effectiveness of program review, will increase the services offered
through tutoring, and will expand the scope of its Learning Resource Centers.
Major Strategies of the Ohlone College Equity Plan
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Create a learning community with enhanced support for disproportionately impacted African American students;
Expand the Puente learning community for adversely affected Hispanic/Latino students;
Include an equity focus in all program reviews to address department-specific disproportionate impact or adverse effect;
Expand acceleration in basic skills English classes by training more faculty to teach these high demand, high success classes
and by offering more sections;
Expand tutoring to include embedded tutors in basic skills courses, particularly focusing on courses with high enrollments of
disproportionately impacted or adversely affected students;
Create a Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) providing professional development opportunities in best practices for faculty,
including best practices in attending to the educational needs of disproportionately impacted and adversely affected groups.
Fortunately, access, as defined by the Chancellor’s Office, is not an issue of inequity at Ohlone College. All groups are
proportionately represented compared to district population. Not many years ago Hispanics/Latinos were an underrepresented
group, but their enrollment growth has positioned them in a place where student enrollment rates exceed district population rates
and, with continued recruitment, are even destined to become the college’s second largest ethnic group. Yet despite proportionate
representation among ethnic groups, the college would like to increase access for certain identified groups, namely veterans, foster
youth, and underrepresented groups in science and engineering.
African Americans are the only student group that has experienced any consistent disproportionate impact, and they have suffered
adverse effects across multiple success indicators: course completion, basic skills success, probation, and degree completion. African
American success rates are also regularly below college-set minimum standards for student success.
African American students are placed at disproportionately high rates into basic skills classes. Fifty-five percent of entering African
American students place into basic arithmetic, three levels below college level math, and less than half are successful after enrolling
in basic arithmetic. Ninety-five percent of African Americans place into some level of basic skills math. In English, 75% of African
American students place into some level of basic skills, a rate 10% above the collegewide average.
Two groups—Hispanics/Latinos and Pacific Islanders—are not disproportionately impacted on the performance indicators of course
completion, but are still not at the minimal level for course completion. Compared to the all-ethnicities standard for course
completion of 69.1%, Hispanics/Latinos and Pacific Islanders were at 65.9% and 67.6%, respectively in fall 2013. Both groups
encouragingly surpassed the minimal standard in fall 2014, but with rates below the institution-set standard in the three previous
years, attention to these two groups is still due. Using Asians as the control group, Hispanics/Latinos had a disproportionality index
of .88, and the index for Pacific Islanders was .90—good, but not good enough. Hispanics/Latinos remain below the college-set
minimum for success in basic skills at 61.6%, a decline from fall 2013.
There are multiple goals that must be met to remedy the inequitable impacts on African American students. Initially, it is believed
that entering African American students who are assessed as not ready for college-level math and English must be supported in ways
that will help them to become prepared and will prevent them from becoming discouraged and withdrawing. It appears that a
significant contributor to the lack of success among African Americans in course completion is their high withdrawal rate. Next,
African Americans must experience greater success in course completion, including success rates in basic skills, transfer, vocational,
and overall course completion. Higher levels of course completion success should then mitigate high probation rates and would also
lead to higher persistence and higher program completion rates.
Specific assistance will focus on two key needs among African American students: providing requisite knowledge and skills to
successfully perform in college level math and English courses and integrating African American students into the larger college
community so they see themselves staying enrolled and succeeding. Specifically, the college will research effective models for
learning communities and will investigate interest in cohort groups or learning communities among African American students.
These learning communities will incorporate interventions such as designated faculty support, peer mentors, personal development
courses fostering student success, tutoring, and peer support. This model has worked successfully with Hispanic/Latino students in
the Puente program, with student athletes, and with EOPS students. Both African American athletes and African Americans enrolled
in EOPS already succeed at higher rates (61.6% and 65.9%, respectively, compared to an overall 60.6% African American rate), so
extending similar services to all African American students is expected to have a positive impact.
Marshaling the resources necessary for such focused support is aligned with the college’s Student Success and Support Program
(SSSP). Individual faculty and counselors must be identified not only to teach the learning community and personal development
courses, but also to have reassigned time to mentor and support students outside of class. This support would have to begin even
before students enroll, with prospective African American students given targeted orientation including support with the financial
aid process, placement testing, first year course selection, guidance in utilizing existing student support services, and integration into
the college environment.
To meet the needs of Hispanic/Latino students, the college will also research the effectiveness of focused learning communities,
specifically the extension of features of the successful Puente Program for Hispanics/Latinos to a second year of support. Puente has
been successful in the past, producing higher success rates than for Hispanics/Latinos in general, so there already exists a good
model to follow, to expand, and to extend to a larger Hispanic/Latino population.
Pacific Islanders are above the benchmark in vocational course completion, but are lagging (67.9%) in transfer course success. An
anticipated source of support for this group is the recent approval of the college as an Asian American Native American Pacific
Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI). This is a designation that will allow the college to apply for grants specifically targeted for
these three groups. Such funds, if forthcoming, will support Pacific Islander success in transfer level courses. To support that success,
the college will investigate the possibility of providing learning communities specifically designed for Pacific Islanders, following the
successful models that emerge through the research into best practices with learning communities.
The college already requires probationary students to enroll in certain college success oriented workshops. The college will explore
the feasibility of recruiting and training embedded tutors to work with students who initially place into the lowest levels of English.
These are often the students who are least college prepared, whose non-success rates (withdrawals and substandard grades) are
highest, and who are least likely to progress on to transfer level English. These potentially at-risk students will be identified before
they withdraw from college or become probationary.
In order to increase student success across all groups—and thereby also supporting all adversely impacted groups, too—the college
has identified four specific strategies intended to raise course completion rates and to foster higher rates of transfer and degree
completion.
The first strategy is to focus the scope of program review on disproportionately impacted groups within disciplines or even within
specific courses. Disaggregated data has been available for departmental program reviews, but program review guidelines had not
specifically required addressing, or even understanding, issues of disproportionate impact. Beginning with fall 2014, the College
actively promoted the use of disaggregated student success data in departmental program reviews, both for issues of access—such
as the relative absence of female students in engineering courses—and for issues of course completion rates.
As a part of both the fall 2014 and the fall 2015 Get It Done Days, faculty were guided through the analysis of a set of sample data to
formulate research questions to be answered through the program review process. Future Get it Done Day workshops will gather in a
forum those departments with identified adversely affected groups where best practices in addressing these student success
needs in the classroom can be shared, discussed, and adapted to department-specific needs. These Get it Done Day workshops will
be followed by forums on assessing student improvement. Program Review will result in the development of Program Improvement
Objectives (PIOs) that will address issues identified in this process.
Academic Deans and the Vice Presidents of Academic Affairs and Student Services will review the program reviews and identify
trends that might be better served on an institutional level. Common program improvement objectives may be consolidated into
institutional improvement objectives. In all cases, objectives will be integrated into the budget and planning process for 2015-2016
and for subsequent budgets.
Tutoring is the primary instructional service provided to students outside of direct instruction. To further support classroom success
that results from this service, the tutoring program will be expanded, particularly building upon the currently successful use of
embedded tutors. Strategically, tutors will be allocated with priority given to those courses with the most at risk or disproportionately
impacted students. For instance, tutors would be more a priority for a basic arithmetic course than for a calculus course. While
tutoring is seen as a vital service, especially when used in conjunction with other interventions such as the Early Alert Program, there
is insufficient ability to make the most of these regular student contacts. Currently, tutoring is comprehensive, with several disciplinespecific services in areas such as science, speech, deaf studies, and foreign languages. However, broader areas of reading and writing,
for instance, are not well connected to direct instruction in disciplines outside of English. Students inform tutors for which class they
are seeking help, but this information is currently collected on forms and filed away. There is insufficient staffing to allow for
communication with instructors about the tutoring session, analysis of what happens in the tutoring sessions, or analysis of the
effectiveness of tutoring overall. The college is in the process of evaluating software that will address these needs. The software has
already been budgeted, and has been functioning since January 2015.
Given the moral imperative to support long term success for all students in a way that is both efficient and effective, a third strategy
is the coordination and expansion of support services on the student services side and the learning resource centers on the
instructional side as a combined Learning Support program. Such a program could bring all support services, both current and
planned, instructional services and student services, into a one-stop shop—if not physically, at least at an awareness and availability
level. Particular emphasis through the Student Equity Plan will be to target these services to identified underrepresented student
groups. However, Ohlone regards itself as a Learning College. There already exists the institutional culture that all students, as well
as all staff, are engaged in furthering knowledge and learning; everyone is a student and capable of further learning. Because this
Learning Support program is intended for all groups and all levels of achievement, an increased level of comfort for impacted
student groups in using this program is anticipated. The program would help all students become aware of, and navigate, all manner
of academic and student support services from initial enrollment to basic skills to transfer, and would become the initial point of
contact for all students, as well as serving faculty as a resource center for professional development, including innovations in
pedagogy and technology.
Learning support from student services is in place, and several improvements mandated by the Student Success Act—universal
orientation, assessment, and counseling, for instance—will increase the effectiveness of current services. Additional student
services, such as comprehensive education plans for all students completing at least 15 degree applicable units, will further support
equitable student success. The college already has a robust support network for disabled students, EOPS students, and—a signature
program of the college—Deaf students. That being said, the college still has plans to increase the level of student services to ensure
that all students, regardless of class time, location, or instructional method have ample access to all available support.
But to better address student success through academic services, both for impacted students and for students already performing
well, students and faculty alike require support in the classroom because, ultimately, the classroom is where student success occurs.
Initially, activities to raise faculty awareness of, and use of, currently available services—early alert, tutoring, accommodations, peer
mentors and embedded tutoring, for example—are necessary, but investing in faculty becoming better teachers yields students with
better success rates. To that end, a vital element of the planned Learning Support program is the expansion of the scope of services
currently provided through the college’s Learning Resource Centers.
With the completion of the college’s Academic Core construction project, multiple academic support services—tutoring, English and
math learning centers, for instance—will be physically brought together into a Learning Commons, much like student services are
singularly located in the Student Services Building. Additionally the college will reinstitute, and add to the services of the Learning
Resource Center, its Faculty Center for Innovation and Technology, a previously successful faculty resource that was put on hiatus
due to both the recent statewide economic downturn and the coincidental retirement of key personnel. The rebirth and expansion
of this instructional services support project has been named the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC).
The primary function of the TLC is to provide faculty—both full-time and adjunct—with resources and training to enhance
effectiveness promoting student success in the classroom, particularly for those courses whose success rates are below the collegeset standard. Included would be workshops, led by and for faculty, that focus on innovations and best practices for improving
classroom teaching and management, promoting collaborative engagement of students and learning—both in and out of the
classroom—developing skills for assessing and improving student learning outcomes, and enhancing the use of technology and other
engaging instructional methods. To facilitate the increased scope of the TLC, three Faculty Resource Coordinators have been given
reassigned time to implement and promote these faculty professional development opportunities.
Outreach to students will be key, as well, and all levels of students—by ethnic groups, by achievement levels, by day or
evening status, by part-time or full-time status—must be engaged and ultimately have their unique success needs met.
In order to become the hub for students when the learning support program is implemented, faculty will have to assume an
integral role. As faculty become fully integrated into the leadership of the TLC and use the programs and services coordinated by
the center, the center will also become a hub for faculty development with workshops or services provided to meet their success
needs and those of the students. What will be significantly important is faculty buy-in and engagement with the learning support
program. This approach must not be seen as solely within the purview and responsibility of student services. It is imperative that
the program be a curricular extension of the classroom and be fully supported and guided by classroom faculty as well as by
student services.
Just as the creation of this Student Equity Plan was the collaborative work of multiple constituencies—College Council, Faculty
Senate, the Executive Leadership Team, the Institutional Research Office, and a special ad hoc work group—implementation will
require collaboration across instructional, student services, and administrative services divisions. Coordinating the work of the
plan is the Vice President, Academic Affairs, and a faculty co-chair who also serves as co-chair of College Council.
For each of the strategies described above, planning for implementation and integration with other college plans is of paramount
importance. Clearly the Student Equity Plan is an integral part of the college’s 2015-2020 Strategic Plan, and the Student Equity
Plan already shares interventions and resources with the Student Success and Support Plan, the college’s basic skills initiatives, and
current STEM programs and grants. It also aligns with the Educational Master Plan, which is currently being updated, as well.
The Equal Employment Opportunity/Ohlone Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee (EEO/ODIAC) Plan contains goals and
activities designed to enhance the intercultural awareness and cultural competence of all faculty and staff. This plan is
another example of the college’s integrated effort to leverage all resources in achieving high levels of success for its students,
especially those whose outcomes indicate they need additional support.
To ensure continued alignment and integration, specific objectives and action plans will be developed collaboratively among
personnel responsible for each of the integrated plans and programs mentioned above. These identified targets will ultimately
drive many of the objectives that the college implements to meet its strategic goals.
Finally, this plan will continue to be regularly assessed, critiqued, revised, and improved. As a part of the college’s annual planning
assessments, the Student Equity Plan will be subject to analysis of outcomes, efficacy of interventions, and college wide support of
direction and scope of the plan. The goal will always be to reduce inequity, but if proposed interventions are not successful, the
plan will be revised and alternate interventions explored. It is imperative that equity be promoted, even if that means revising the
Student Equity Plan more often than once every three years.